2 April
2022
27 March
2022
From the bartender’s corner – Dry Manhattan
20 March
2022
From the bartender’s corner – Daisy Cutter Martini
Difford’s Guide claims the name originates from the cricketing term. In cricket, a ball that bounces more than once or rolls before reaching the batsman is called a Daisy Cutter. I have no idea what that has got to do with the drink.
This vodka, dry vermouth, elderflower liqueur and yellow chartreuse garnished with some slapped mint leaves.
20 March
2022
Puzzle #2 (logic) from my India trip
This puzzle also comes courtesy my eldest nephew.
There are 101 boxes. A girl marked them “1”, “2”, “3”…. all the way to “101”. She had two colored pens to mark the boxes with – red and blue. And she used both of them. Only one color was used for any one box. We know that the total number of blue boxes is the same as the highest numbered blue color marked box. And to that if you add twice the lowest numbered red color marked box, you will get the total number of boxes.
The question is, how many blue and red boxes were there?
17 March
2022
Puzzle #1 (math) from my India trip
This was given to me by my elder nephew. I was able to solve it but in the process I learnt a new concept in numbers called partition number. My nephew taught me a method of how to get to the partition number for a number. He claimed it is called the Chinese method.
Here is the puzzle:
In the following expression, once expanded, what is the coefficient of x9 ?
(1+x)(1+x2)(1+x3)(1+x4)(1+x5)….(1+x100)
6 March
2022
Temporary casualty of transition between homes
6 March
2022
From the bartender’s corner – Rainy Wednesday
28 February
2022
Good grief! My doppelganger!!
Somewhat unexpectedly, I got a Whatsapp message from my good friend Swati Jamwal asking me if I was in Pune having breakfast at a hotel. That was while I was sleeping in Atlanta. I saw the message when I woke up the next day and let her know that I was not. But that I will be in India in a couple of weeks. Curious, I enquired why she was asking.
She sent me this picture and asked me if this was my twin!
Man! I myself was fooled. My first reaction was that she was playing a prank on me with some old picture of mine!!
Later, Sharmila and Nikita pointed out some very subtle differences in the lips and nose. But boy, I was totally fooled!!!
My Pune friends, if you ever see “me” in Pune, please collect “my” contacts and send it to me. I will make it a point to take a picture of us together!!
26 February
2022
From the bartender’s corner – Obituary
After 5+ hours of driving for three successive days, I was as good as dead – I was so tired this evening. All the more reason to make a drink fairly appropriately named – Obituary!!
There are lots of variations of this cocktail but this is the classic version – gin, dry vermouth and pastis.
Speaking of obituaries, coincidentally, Thomas Latimer sent me a Ted Talks video – What I learnt from 2000 obituaries – that I found to be fascinating.
26 February
2022
What do you think is happening here?
If anybody is not familiar with interstate highway I-16 in Georgia, it connects Savannah to Macon and pretty much goes like a straight line east-west. There are virtually no towns or cities in between. As a result the 120 mile or so highway has a consistent speed limit of 70 mph.
Sharmila and I were coming back from Hilton Head on this highway. Somewhere in that highway, I noticed something interesting. The display on the rental car dashboard informed me that the speed limit was 40 mph. (see the top middle portion of the picture) I was not in a construction zone and the highway was totally clear.
It took me some time and experimentation to understand what was going on.
Can you guess why the car was giving me completely wrong info (suggesting 40mph in a clearly 70mph stretch)?
If you want a slight hint, check out the other displays on the dashboard in the picture.
